Monday, November 12, 2012

L and M Arts Tips Hat To Ray Bradbury

As much of Venice is changing, all the time, it's always good to tip one's hat to what came before ... like the current exhibition at L and M Arts that is honoring Ray Bradbury and the fact that this crucial gallery is located on the very site that Bradbury lived and wrote The Martian Chronicles within. Wow.

The show For The Martian Chronicles features a cavalcade of artists with a thin line connecting them via the idea of martians, space and Bradbury - or the appreciation thereof.

The West Gallery is currently featuring an All Star Jam of artists that Venice knows, loves or houses, with a wink or a bow to Mr. Bradbury, knowing or not.

The show is big, from a Ruscha (Hold For A Minute I'm No Martian) (carrot juice on paper!) ...

... to a Houseago mask seen here a few months ago ...

... to for real original galley proofs of The Martian Chronicles from the desk of Ray Bradbury himself.

I love the fact that you can enter the quiet rooms of the gallery and be transported to Mars ... through words, through art, through your own open mind.

In fact, truth be told, my favorite part of this entire new show was the new busted out ceiling sky-light in the East Gallery, with the ever-changing sky as the constant exhibit. Life is but a dream.

But dreams are interpreted while mortal by artists, musicians, philosophers, psychics, actors... Story tellers, whatever the medium, really. And we're all just trying to make a little sense of it.

Not that this show will help with that, but at least you can take a break from REAL sense-making, and just absorb the possibilities. And many they are.

If Price, Bell, Purifoy, Asher, Sachs, etal, combined can't give you a moment's escape, then I'm not sure how to help. On a rainy afternoon, with the specter of Bradbury hovering over it all ... it made total sense that we've recently made contact with Mars, and the whole Universe is out there for the art making. Every idea is exciting!

The East Gallery at L and M is showing Monica Majoli in her first hometown of Los Angeles show. Her stuff is dark. Sexual. Yearning. Almost a little voyeuristic in that the women portrayed feel very vulnerable, stark and wanting.

Oil paintings on black mirror represent boudoir moments of uncertainty and the rawness of desire, reciprocated or not.

The press release for the show was extra intense as to the meaning behind all the dark and drama of the Majoli works, but in my head I kept hearing a plaintive lady singer-songwriter's wails of unrequited or disturbed love behind it all, that I'm not sure I'd seek out for a playlist (if I knew how to manage that smack). It felt like a bummer.

But the day didn't, because it's so great that I/We get to see major scene art scenes a mere bike pedal away in the heart of Venice. Where it's meant to be all about art. Where L & M is such a gift. Where we can tend to forget about our connection to one another and our individual expression. Unless it's planted smack dab in front of us, and we're open to it.

Let us strive to honor Mr. Bradbury, the artists who honor him, and ourselves who dream and create and aim for the stars (planets), whatever that means ... Now. And always.

The sky isn't EVEN the limit.L and M Arts
660 Venice Blvd.
Venice
Both shows, now through January 5th, 2013